Murder
by TotalCSIfan
Summary: Nick investigates a woman's death in her bedroom. This investigation yeilds some suprises that leads to a shocking conclusion. Please read and review!


Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI.

Murder

Nick Stokes was on his way to the crime scene he had been assigned to for the evening. The scene was at a home in a very upscale gated community. He had to work solo on this case because everyone else had other cases, as usual it was a busy night for the Vegas Crime Lab. He parked the Denali and got out. The house was massive, _"Wow I can't even afford the door knob to this place." _He thought to himself as he walked up the front steps and went in.

"Hey Jim, what do we have?" he asked Jim Brass when he was inside.

"Hey Nick, female DB in her early thirties named Anna James, she has been viciously hit over the head, and her throat has been slit, husband found her when he got back from the grocery store."

"Where's the husband?" Nick asked.

"In the living room."

Nick walked into the living room and found a man sitting on the couch.

"Mr. James, I'm Nick Stokes from the Vegas Crime Lab, what happened tonight?" Nick asked.

"After I got back from the store I put the groceries away and then I walked into the bedroom to get ready for bed and I saw….I found….Anna. I ran to see if she was breathing, she wasn't, I checked for a pulse and she didn't have one so I dialed 911 but it was too late, they couldn't save her." Jack James said and then he put his head in his hands and begin weeping.

After the man had finished telling Nick the story Nick then went into the master bedroom, it looked like a scene from a horror movie, blood was everywhere. Laying on the floor next to the bed was Anna James, like Brass said her throat had been slit, and she was a bloody mess. Nick also noticed the good sized head wound on the back of her head. Next to the body lay a bloody knife as well as a bloody picture frame. Nick flashed a few pictures of the items and then picked up the picture frame and saw a picture of a smiling couple, the couple was Mr. and Mrs. James. Nick studied the sharp edge of the frame and then Anna's head wound, it looked to Nick like it could have been what was used to bash Anna in the head.

"Hey Nick." The coroner David Phillips said as he walked in the room.

"Hey Super." Nick answered.

Super Dave immediately took the vic's liver temp. "She's been dead about 2.5 hours." David said.

Nick looked at his watch, it read 12:30.

David transported the body to the lab for autopsy and Nick stayed behind to collect evidence. Nick found two prints, one was a bloody print on the knife and the other one was on the glass part of the picture frame. Nick took the prints and then bagged the evidence. After he was finished processing the bedroom Nick then went out back to look in the James' garbage can, he knew he didn't need a search warrant because trash was public property. He hit the jackpot, he found a shirt covered with blood, as well as a pair of jeans also blood-soaked. After he had taken pictures and collected the clothing, he searched the rest of the dumpster but found nothing useful. Nick then went back into the house. He found Mr. James still sitting on the couch.

"Mr. James would you be willing to come down to the station so I could get your fingerprints and DNA?"

"Why?"

"It will help clear you, if you refuse I'll get a warrant and get it anyway."

Mr. James agreed to go down to the station.

Once they were there Nick took his fingerprints and DNA. After he was finished Nick went to drop off the items of evidence he had collected while Jack James talked to Brass again but he didn't tell Brass anything different then what he had before.

When the results came back from trace and DNA they were not that surprising to Nick. The blood on the shirt and jeans as well as the blood on the frame and on the knife belonged to Anna James. The DNA inside the pants though belonged to Jack James himself, as did the print on the knife and the one on the picture frame.

Nick shook his head as he went to request a warrant to search the rest of the James' property. Nick didn't say a word to Jack James when he arrived at the house a few hours later with a warrant in his hand, he simply handed Jack the warrant and stepped inside the house.

Nick viewed the security camera at the James' residence. In an upscale neighborhood like this a lot of people had a lot of money, so security cameras were common in case of a robbery, luckily for Nick the James' were one of the many houses that had a security camera. The camera revealed that Jack had lied to Nick, he had never went to the store, the camera did not show Jack James' truck ever backing out of the garage, nor did it show anyone else coming into the residence. Nick also looked for signs of forced entry into the home, he didn't find any, not that he had expected too.

He stayed at the house a while longer looking for anything else that might be useful, the only thing he found was a few drops of blood in the master bathroom sink.

He then went and interviewed friends, family, and neighbors of the James', to ask them questions about the couple. Everyone echoed the same sentiment: that the James' were a very happy couple and Jack would never do anything to hurt Anna. Nick got back into his Denali frustrated. The evidence was telling him a different story but nothing seemed to make sense. Why would a seemingly loving husband one day just kill his wife in cold blood? Nick drove back to the lab to make a few phone calls.

Once back at the lab he called a few places but to Nick's disappointment it didn't do him any good, Jack had not taken out a life insurance policy on his wife, he had thought that money might have been the reason for Anna's death but his theory did not check out.

Even though he had no motive the evidence was overwhelmingly telling Nick that Jack was guilty. Following the story the evidence was telling him Nick surmised that what had happened went something like this: Because Anna had no defensive wounds on her hands Nick guessed that Jack had surprised Anna by coming up behind her and hitting her in the head with the edge of the picture frame which had caused her to fall down but it didn't kill her so Jack had then slit her throat. This was supported by Doc Robbins because during Anna's autopsy he had concluded that her COD was exsanguination, not blunt force trauma. After changing his clothes he washed his hands in the bathroom sink, leaving a few drops of blood behind, he then made a fake yet frantic call to 911 to report his wife dead. There was just one piece of the investigation Nick didn't know, and it was eating him up inside.

After Jack had been arrested Nick was sitting across from him in the interrogation room, Jack was handcuffed and his facial expression showed no sign of remorse or anguish about being caught.

"There is only one thing I couldn't figure out during my investigation Mr. James, and that is why you killed her." Nick told him as he squinted across the table at who he considered a gross excuse for a human being.

"You want to know why I did it?" I'll tell you why." Jack spat back angrily.

Nick crossed his arms and waited for his explanation.

"She wouldn't drop this damn baby idea." The man said as if that explained everything perfectly.

"What does that mean?" Nick asked coldly.

"She wanted a baby, she hounded me about it endlessly. I told her I didn't want one and she wouldn't drop it. I didn't want no damn baby that I would have to take care of, waking me at all hours of the night, crying for no damn reason, and I certainly didn't want to lose the care free lifestyle we lived. We travel all the time, with a baby you can't just go out and do whatever you want to do anymore, and I wasn't willing to give that up I expressed that over and over again but she wouldn't listen and kept begging me, I finally had heard enough and I just snapped." He stopped and looked at Nick.

Nick didn't say a word, he just stared at him coldly.

"That's all I can tell you." Jack James said with a shrug.

Nick didn't know what to say so instead of saying anything he just gave this monster one last death glare and then turned and looked at the officer in the room.

"Get him out of here." Nick said sternly to the officer before Nick got up and left the room in total disgust.

The End!

**Note: I would love reviews because I don't write case stories very often, I feel that I am much better with cute Nick family stories then I am with case type stories, at least those are much easier for me to write, so I would love your thoughts, should I write more of these kinds of stories or should I stick to family Nick stories? Thanks!**


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